Bridging the industry-academia collaboration gap a focus towards final year projects

Abstract

Industry-Academia collaboration is much necessary in order to provide benefit to this global village of technology. Indeed, there are many factors which are still needed to be considered in order to make use of computer science in IT industry. As an illustration, acceptance of the FYPs of students in IT industry and their usefulness, providing cost benefits to the students who carry out FYPs, elevating the factor of awareness of FYPs conducted/in process, in the industry, and improving liaisons of universities with industries in order to enhance the process of conducting FYPs. The focus of this research revolves around the question that Are the FYPs in computer science discipline beneficial for the IT industry of Pakistan, and is there any collaboration between IT industry and Academia of Pakistan? The results are outlined after exploring the answers to this question. For this purpose, at least 112 computer sciences graduated and post graduated personnel from different IT sectors and academia of Pakistan were surveyed using convenient sampling procedure to study the importance of their FYPs in the industry and a web based platform is suggested to bridge the gap between Industry and Academia of Pakistan. Indeed, accomplishing all of these tasks will help IT industry to get well-structured projects and students who are pre exposed to IT practices. Consequently, the linkage between industry and academia will be developed through joint and integrated research programs, offering apprenticeship to the students, industry expert opinion in curriculum designing, and appointing faculty members with sound knowledge of the industry.